Hey there. I'm new to Ghostvillage but as you'll soon see, not new to any and everything paranormal.
In this post I'll catalogue my entire recollection of paranormal instances from my early childhood to the most recent things that've happened to me. In this post I'll recount my childhood experiences, and someday soon I'll finish with my much more mundane adult experiences.

My first paranormal memory.

I was 4 and living with my parents in an apartment above my grandparents home. It was early am in the summer and my windows were open for the breeze. I remember waking up to the sound of thunder, I lay there in the dark for a few minutes and suddenly, at the foot of my bed was a large blue ball of light.
It crackled and all my hair stood up, then, with a blinding flash and a loud BOOM it "exploded" and vanished.
I was dizzy and shivering as my father ran into my room to see what happened, it stank like battery acid or what I know now as the scent of ozone.
I never found out what it was, but my parents heard the boom and saw the light. Dad tried to tell me it was ball lightning, I have no idea. I'd think lightning would leave more evidence behind, like burn marks etc. As a side note, since then, I've had an odd affect on electrical items, street lights, radios etc. Flickering street or parking lot lights will suddenly go full light when I approach and return to flickering as I pass them, tv images will distort like the screen needs to be degauzed when I get close to them, radio signals will static up etc. And I can wreak havoc on EMF detectors.

Early Summer of my 7th year, my father was working midnight shifts at the local papermill so it was just my mom and my little brother alone in the house. We began to receive phone calls in the middle of the night, mom would answer, become very agitated, swear at the caller and hang up. This went on for a few days before my mom began to get very very scared at night and had people come to spend the night. The calls got more and more frequent, and as I find now, became more and more vicious and sadistic. The police were called, taps were put on our lines. Male relatives came and spent the night with loaded guns. The police were never able to trace any of the calls, they said it was because we had a party line, but I'm really not so sure. After 4 weeks of this my mother was not sleeping, would go into hysterics every time the phone rang. Her brothers, and my fathers uncle came to spend a weekend with us to try to get to the bottom of what was going on. If any of the men answered the phone, the caller would identify them by name and demand to speak to my mother. All the men were scared and angry about this, one of my uncles was adopted, he was a full blooded penobscot indian, and my fathers uncle, who was a very spiritual and philosophically versed man, performed a cleansing ritual, they burned sage, chanted, drummed and cleansed the house and the entire property. It took them hours and the ritual lasted all night. When they finished both of the men were drained and spent, but the calls ceased thereafter. I spoke to my mother about these calls a few years ago and she finally divulged what was being said to her. Who or whatever was calling us, would identify her by name, identify both me and my brother by name, tell her he new my father was at work and we were alone, and then he'd describe intensely violent and sadistic acts he wanted to do to her and have her help him do to my brother and myself. She to this day won't tell me precisely what he threatened to do, but just recalling these things brings tears to her eyes and makes her shake.

I was 7 and living in my parents new home out in a very rural area of Maine. It was late at night and I was in my bedroom alone save for the family dog Jake. Jake was a huge german shepherd dog, he weighed 135 lbs and was a fearless animal. He'd even scared off blackbears from the property. At any rate, I woke up late that night because jake was growling deep in his throat and it scared the hell out of me. It was a full moon and my bedroom was bathed in the moonlight. I looked around to see where jake was and what he was angry at, he was between my bed and the bedroom windows, his hackles were raised and his haunches were spread wide, he was facing the window and appeared to be growling at it. I tried to talk to him, to calm him but he wouldn't take his attention off of the window. Suddenly I saw the sillouette of a figure outside my bedroom window, a large head and shoulders in the top pane of the window and the upper torso in the lower pane. The figure passed through one window, appeared to turn and either face into my bedroom or face away, I can't tell as my father has put plastic over the windows to winterize them and the plastic was thick and opaque, all I saw was shadow and sillouette. When the figure turned, jakes growl turned to kyais, whimpers and wines, his tail tucked between his legs. The figure turned again and walked out of the window frame. When the figure turned away, jake began barking wildly, bringing my father into my room. I told him what the commotion was about and he ran to get a flashlight and rifle and took jake out on leash. I could see the light from dads flashlight against the window and I heard jake growing and barking. Dad came in again looking pale and shaken, but said he didn't see anything. He sat with me for a half hour or so talking to me about what I saw and trying to soothe me. The next morning we went and looked for tracks in the damp fall soil but found nothing. What bothers me now that I am an adult and I think is part of what made my dad so pale, is that my house was built on a full and finished basement. The foundation rose above the ground two feet before the house was set onto the foundation and my bedroom windows were fully 9 and a half feet off the ground at the top of the windows.

My great grandmother on my mothers side was a psychic, she could use a ouija board without toching the platen at all as it moved, and her mother was even more adept than she was. The women of my family line come from a long line of irish pagans back to the old country. When I was 16 my great grandmother was in the hospital with a number of ailments, her heart and liver were failing her. One night I had a dream. It was grammy but younger, her hair wasn't white it was bright red, like when she was a young girl, and she was slender and slim, but I knew it was her. She sat on my bed and rested a hand on my foot, she smiled at me and said softly. Mikey Pat, (Michael Patrick, can you tell I have irish blood?) I won't be with you in this world any more, I've gone away, but I will always be in your heart and soul. She touched her fingers to her lips and laid the kiss on my chest and then she faded from view. I woke up crying and my grandmother, my great grandmothers daughter, came into my bedroom. I told her that grammy ella was dead and she told me I was just having a bad dream. She held me a few minutes and as she was getting ready to leave my bedroom the phone rang, we looked at each other for a second and she went off to answer it. When she returned she was crying and sat on the bed and told me I was right and that grammy had come to say goodbye.

When I was 10 my grandfather, who was a successfull plumbing contractor at the time bought a huge old colonial home on the coast of maine. The home was 110 years old and was a HUGE home. The house had an attic but the owners didn't have the keys to it, and told us that in the 5 years they owned the home they hadn't ever gone up there because the door at the top of the stairs was locked. When my grandparents bought the house they had a locksmith come and replace the lock on the attic door. We all went up and found old trunks, photos of the original family, a vintage spinning wheel for turning out scanes of yarn, and an amazing grandfather clock. My grandparents had the two pieces restored and put in the house as antique pieces. From the time the items were brought back to the house, we heard footsteps going up and down the attic stairs, down the second floor stairs and out into the hallway were the items were displayed. Nothing more than this, no angry presence or other noises, just footsteps from the attic down to the items we had removed, every night, 4 or 5 times a night. We never minded it and never did anything about it. The house as I recall is now a bed and breakfast.

When I was 11 I used to walk to school and across from my school was a small hill with the ruins of an old mansion that had burned down in an infamous fire that burned down dozens of rich homes in the 20's. The hill was called Hamilton Hill and it intrigued me to no end. I was drawn to explore it and finally convinced two of my chums to come up there with me. We set out one weekend evening to hike up the hill with flashlights and go exploring. There were a number of structures still intact, an old carriage house made mostly of brick that was still standing, a turret of stone with a room that had no door at the top of a spiraling set of steele stairs, a pool, pool house and a tunnel that went under the pool house and around the bottom of the pool with windows so you could have looked in at whoever was swimming. Nothing much happened in the carriage house, the turret or the pool house, but down in the tunnel, all three of us saw a face in the semi dark with glowing eyes, at first we thought maybe it was a cat or a dog, but then the face rose up from the floor to about 6 feet or so and we could hear rasping ragged breaths in the darkness, the glowing eyes suddenly seemed to rush towards us and we all screamed and ran for our lives out of the tunnel and down the hill. After that neither of my friends would even talk about what they saw, much less go back up there, and I never did muster enough courage to go alone. The ruins have since been purchased and a new mansion has been built up there.

When I was 13 I was walking with a friend to his house to spend the night, we were taking a side street, it was a quiet dark residential neighborhood, it was late and on this small side stree there were no street lights, only the glow of porch lights. As we approached one house we both noticed the sound of chanting and a baby crying. We stopped and listened more closely, and sure enough, chanting and a baby crying. We crept around the side of the house and in an upstairs windows we could see figures in sillouette against the window shade. The chanting raised into a cresciendo, the dark shadows all seemed to converge into a tight knot and suddenly both the chanting and the crying ended. Needless to say both my friend and I broke world speed records getting the hell away from there. No one believed us when we told our parents, and there was never any baby missing or dead baby story in the paper, so we let it go. But even today I shiver recalling that.

I'm going to end the post here as recalling all these events have me in a wierd frame of mind. I need to take a walk and enjoy the beautifull fall sun today before I go and finish these stories. I'll pick it up later and finish if any of you care to know the rest.

Interests:Needlework, including counted cross stitch and knitting, reading, dogs, triking (trikes are three wheeled motorcycled if you didn't know) and flower gardening. That is besides the paranormal...

Posted 01 November 2006 - 08:37 AM

Welcome to GV, Bear. Thanks for posting such spooky experiences. I would have to say that I tend to agree with your dad that you saw ball lightning at the foot of your bed. No one knows much about this phenomanon, but it doesn't leave scorch marks or start fires. Now, why you cause electrical things to go haywire, I'll leave up to someone who knows something about that! LOL!
I was especially intrigued by the figure outside your window, causing your GSD (I have one) to go bonkers. That made me shiver as the house I grew up in was built the same way - no way an average man would walk past and you'd see more than his head. This annecdote put me in mind of Sasquatch stories I have heard and read. Thanks for sharing, Bear. Hang around and tell us some more.

"Never wrestle with a pig. All you get is dirty and the pig has all the fun." ~ Anon.

I really enjoyed reading your stories and am eager to read more. They are so well decripted as well. The most scary instance to me was the beast in the tunnel. Gave me the shivers. Ok, its a close tie with the shadow in your window.

O'Siyo, Howdy!, Papa Bear (Bear is my Totem, along with Wolf and Eagle)!
Welcome to GV!
Come on, More Stories! Love these! Not a Bit do they Terrify me!
And I am Glad your Uncle got Rid of the Hack that did what he Done!
I'd have done the very same.
To protect my Family I am a Mama Bear Type; Maternal in Good Times, but Fiercely Protective when Angered and my Family is Threatened.
What Your Uncle did (if you Know Anything of Native American Religious Rites), was not just Cleanse the Property, but he also sent the "Skinwalkers" (one thing your People and mine have in common), after the Hack that did that to your Family. That Individual was "Scared to Death," Literally! That is likely why the Calls Ended.
I know, my Uncle Spotted Bear (Apache), is a Medicine Chief.
You can consider me a Native Sister. I can "See" what others Normally cannot.
I am Virginia Iroquois, Cherokee, Taos Tewa Pueblo, and Navajo (Taos Tewa and Navajo is Adoptive).
If you need Any help with Information on Native American Subjects, Please feel free to ask and I will do my Best to help you.
Also, I am Not one who is any stranger to the Paranormal (Love Ghosts and Ghost Investigations) and if you also Need help with Genealogy Work, I will do my Best to assist where asked.
Call on me anytime if you have a Question!
Again, Welcome, Brother!

I have to agree with your father about the ball lightning mentioned in your first story. Nothing about ball lightning is really normal - we're used to seeing lightning streak across the sky or touch the ground - so it's natural that it wouldn't leave normal tell-tale signs of having been there.